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 Tuscany Food:
A vacation in Tuscany
usually starts by enjoying its gorgeous landscape and certainly finishes eating
at a table. A great love for good food is the 'DNA character' of the local
people also because there is such a wide range of typical dishes to choose from.
The basic ingredients besides good olive oil are other products of the earth
such as cabbage, beans and other vegetables which along with bread make up
ribollita, delicious if seasoned with chopped onion.
Hardened bread is also
the main ingredient to prepare pappa col pomodoro which also requires tomatoes
(typical ribbed kind) and herbs. Bread is again the basic ingredient of
panzanella , a fine substitute for pasta in summer.
Dark cabbage soup, instead, is more suitable as a winter first course.
Empolese-Valdelsa, around San MIniato, is a game land, so no-one should leave it
without tasting a game dish. There are so many of them and sometimes the same
game is prepared in different ways from one town to another. Particularly
appreciated in the Certaldo area is the woodcock cooked in a strong and sweet
sauce, that is, with spices and chocolate. In Montaione there are restaurants
which serve fagiano alla montaionese (pheasant in the Montaione mode). Hare and
wildboar meat makes tasty dishes cooked such as stew with olives in which the
pappardelle pasta is cooked: a real treat! The presence of a marsh
near Fuchecchio makes it possible to offer typical game and fish dishes.
In summer try ranocchio fritto (fried frogs) and chiocciole in umido
(stewed snails). More difficolt to find in restaurants is risotto con le
tinche (rice with tench). Then we should talk of the incomparable cold cuts of different salted pork products typical of this area:
prosciutto (more salty than the "parma" one), mallegato (pancake
made with pig's blood and enriched with raisins), wild boar sausages,
finocchiona (a fennel flavored salame) and soppressata (a
wonderful big salame made with the head meat of pork).
Among the vegetables
zolfino beans are a special treat almost impossible to find which is now
being re-introduced by local restaurants, either boiled, with pasta or as a
cream. Among the 303 traditional products recorded by Arsia (Regional Department
for Agricultural Development and Research) there are the artichokes from Empoli
and San Miniato, famous for being tender and compact and for not having thorns.
As for desserts, there are delicious biscuits such as the cantuccini
made especially to be dipped into the vin santo and many others baked
on different occasions of the year: the zuccherini which one may taste
in Fucecchio at the Carnival, the schiacciata di Pasqua, an Easter cake
typical of the whole area and castagnaccio, a pie made with chestnut
flour and pinenuts, very popular in autumn.
....We have forgotten to talk of the fish cuisine of the coast, that is another
interesting story... and about... and also of... too much to say. Come over to Tuscany
and enjoy your meals!
 Olives have been cultivated on the rolling Tuscan hills since the seventh
century B.C., so it’s no wonder that
extra virgin Tuscan olive oils an emblem of the culture of this area in the heart of
Italy. With its intense green-to-gold color and fruity aroma of almonds,
artichokes and mature fruit, this olive oil is one of the finest and most valued
in Italy. To fully appreciate the sweet, rounded flavor of Tuscan oil, pour it
onto a slice of Tuscan bread that has been lightly toasted and rubbed with
garlic (the classic bruschetta).
To the beef connoisseur, few cuts of meat are as exceptional as those from
the cattle raised in Tuscany’s Chianna valley. These white-hided cattle produce
large cuts of meat (including the huge T-bone steaks known as
bistecca alla fiorentina), which is low in fat, remarkably
flavorful, and so tender that, traditionally, it requires only a short cooking
time over a glowing red-hot charcoal fire, with just a sprinkling of salt.
It literally means “strong bread,” but Italian lovers of sweets know
panforte as the famous confectionery of the colorful city
of Siena, home to the annual Palio horse races. Legend has it that this
delightful concoction of nuts, candied lemon and orange peel, flour, sugar,
honey, and spices, originated in the 13th century and was once believed to be an
aphrodisiac. Today,
panforteis enjoyed all over Italy, especially
during the Christmas season.
Vin Santo (“holy wine”) is a soft,
medium-dry-to-sweet dessert wine, made from grapes that have been hung up to dry
and pressed only when they are almost completely transformed into raisins. It
takes two to six years for the resulting wine to mature, during which time it
takes on rich flavors of nuts, apricots, honey, and spices. After a meal,
Tuscans like to dip the local hard almond cookies,
biscotti di Pratoor cantuccini, in small glasses of Vin Santo.
And don't forget The San Giminiano Saffron DOP,
a delicacy for 600 years and
Miele della Lunigiana DOP,
the best honey in Italy.
Siena Hotels
(c) 1997-2008 E. Massetti
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